


Painkillers

by Unpronounceable



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Vomiting, Xenobiology, aliens and human stuff doesn't mix, sorta?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 22:32:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unpronounceable/pseuds/Unpronounceable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Your name is Dave Strider, and you think you accidentally killed off the troll living with you."</p><p>In which Dave accidentally almost kills his flatmate by trying to help him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Painkillers

Your name is Dave Strider, and you think you accidentally killed off the troll living with you.

In your defense, you know nothing about troll biology and what can and can not potentially kill them.  
Or maybe that's not a very solid defense at all; you probably should have schooled up on how trolls work if you were going to live with one, but that was then and this is now.

Sollux, an awkward and bitter little guy who liked to crack joints that by all natural standards should not be crackable and bitch about things half-heartedly while multitasking like a champ, had this tendency to get headaches.  
You suppose it might come with awesome flashy space alien powers that let him grab the remote no matter how small he was compared to you, and you honestly thought it was way worth it -you kind of still do- and didn't get why he always nagged about them. 

Until you googled what a migraine was like, and when you were too lazy to read an entire wiki article, being only human, dialed up Rose to have her explain.

Throwing up, seeing lights and passing out was definitely not like the headaches you had had throughout the times.

You admit that you had been a little worried after Rose's thorough and illustrative explanation.  
You did live with the guy, after all, and you even thought of him as a bro. You'd even go as far as saying you were friends, although you weren't sure how your own little lisp factory felt about that. Something about the line between friends and enemies being thin, you don't know, some weird cultural bullshit.  
But even if he saw you as nothing more than a human roommate with kickass moves and sick beats and a natural talent for making unhealthy food, you held him in pretty high regards compared to other assholes you had the misfortune of knowing, and you'd really hate it if he passed out and painted your floor sticky mustard because of a migraine that you'd passed off as 'just a little headache, stop having a sissy fit'.

Sollux was weirdly anal about never grazing your vision when he was having a fit, though, so you didn't really know how bad his got.  
Maybe he didn't want you around when he had them because you'd called his pain a sissy fit.  
That made you marginally more guilty, but didn't give you any more information about how you could help.

One fine and blistering hot day, one where you come home from the store and change immediately into shorts and nothing more, you find him in the kitchen, wearing one of those hideously baggy T-shirts and boxers but nothing more, leaning his ass on the counter with the knuckles of one hand digging into his brow.

Glancing at him with a mixture of mild curiosity and very mild concern, you set some bags next to the sink, picking up a bag of bread, some juice, bacon, your general two-guy-apartment stuff.

"You okay there, sunshine?"

You'd decided to call him sunshine once you'd remembered your Latin classes and the meaning of the two words that Sollux's name was made up of.  
It made such wonderful ironic sense that nature's favourite punching bag was (almost) literally named sunlight, you couldn't possibly pass up the chance to rub it in his face.

'Sunshine' didn't look up, but grumbled something and went to retreat to his room.  
Again with that dumb hermit thing.

Disgruntled, but only slightly because Striders had no cares, you shoved some cartons into the fridge, taking a moment to bask in the glorious cold.

"You know, if your skull is in mutiny again, instead of bitching at everything in sight and ripping out what little hair you have, you could just swallow your pride along with a couple of painkillers and some water and spare the world your second-hand pain."

  
Sollux turns to you again, squinting like you're Juliet the sun herself and he's the sick, pale moon.  
Which has a bit of truth in it, since he is pale and sickly-looking as he scowls and sways a little bit on his feet, and lord knows you're a fine piece of man.

"What the fuck ith a painkiller, Thtrider. Are you making thome dumbatthh joke, becauthe I am tho far from being in the mood for your shit it'th not even funny."

You sigh wearily, as if all the world's concerns are on your shoulders, because god he could be such a grump sometimes.

"Painkillers. You know, that thing that kills pain? As the name slightly implies? We have like a full bottle in the top shelf of the bathroom cabinet, go pop a couple, that's like your thing so you should be ecstatic."

Sollux just looks confused and irritated, but shuffles to the bathroom to see if you're just telling tales of illusionary relief.  
So apparently trolls didn't have painkillers in their painfully inadequate culture? Weird.  
You swear all the trolls were a bunch of BDSM extreme enthusiasts; they have their thing for murdering, those stupid hate relationships, even claws and chompers ideal for causing extreme pain if weapons or mind powers weren't around.

You might not know the exact definition of BDSM, but who cares. You finish throwing groceries into random spots in the kitchen and decide to watch cartoon network until it's evening and your eyes aren't in danger of turning into fried tofu or something.

What feels about twenty minutes later, which means it's exactly twenty minutes later because your sense of time is impeccable, you hear him walk into the kitchen and open the fridge.  
Stuck to the couch, figuratively and literally -sweat and leather material, not a good match- you craned your neck a little to call to him instead of getting up and walking all the way over.

"Hey man, you doin' better?"

A pause, presumably while he swallows whatever he was having, and he peaks out from behind the drywall.

"Uh, yeah, actually, way better. …Thankth."

You just nod and go back to your Ed Edd 'n Eddy, not thinking much more of the situation.  
You helped out your unfortunately ignorant friend.  
Good for you.

But of course nothing about that asshole could be that simple.

You hear a very soft noise of something, then a hesitant voice.

"Dave?"

Unblinking, consumed by the shaky lines on the screen, you call back a 'huh', but get no answer. 

A few seconds, then again, "Dave."

This time you blink, turning your head to the kitchen without breaking eye contact with your TV.

"What."

Again, he doesn't answer, but you hear harsh breathing coming from the other room, and it's enough to make you finally look up.

"Sol-"

"Dave!"

You sit up, kind of alarmed by that tone of voice, before you hear glass shatter and a chair topple over and something meaty and human hit the floor.  
Well, not human, but you know.

In seconds, you're inside the kitchen, your eyes locating Sollux.

He's lying on the floor, leaning on one elbow and trying to get up, from the looks of it. You hurry over, crouching near him and feeling really fucking confused.

"The fuck's going on, are you ok?" 

He pants but doesn't say anything for a good while, and you wonder if he's having a heat stroke.  
Suddenly he lurches, barely managing to keep himself up by curling his hands into fists and leaning over the floor right before he pukes.

It's pretty damn gross, and from the sounds he's making it's none too pleasant for him either, plus you're fairly sure something got on your hand.  
But before you're able to feel disgusted and wipe it off on Captor's shirt, he's falling face-first into his own ex-stomach contents, and it's only your reflexes that save blood from being added into the mess.

You hoist him over your legs and take in his appearance; he's shaking like a scared bird, sweating more than is normal even in this kind of heat, and his eyes keep twitching around, even while they're closed.

You slap his cheek lightly, moving his head to look at you.

"Captor. Sollux. Hey, look at m- no no, stop that, _look at me_. The fuck is wrong with you, what's happening?"

He doesn't answer, but stares at you with those weird pupil-less eyes so you can't tell if he's looking at you or through you. Even though his eyes are essentially just orbs of colour, you can tell they're glazed over, and still moving rapidly.  
You even see some sparks, you're pretty sure, and seeing it happen up close weirds you out more than a little.  
  
He makes a noise, choked and shallow, and jerks in your arms.  
His fingers spasm and claw at the floor, then his hands, then your shirt, and you don't have any time to react to anything before he whimpers and groans, closing his eyes and thrashing.  
You are really creeped out.  
It might even be sufficient to say that you're uncomfortably close to panicking, stuck with staring while the horned creature on your kitchen floor acts like he's being bitten by ants everywhere, making painful, breathless noises at every movement.

"Shit, shit what the fuck, okay Captor. Okay, just hang on or something, I gotta call Rose, she'll probably know what the fuck's going on."

Your hands shake as they fumble for your cellphone -which is still in your jeans from before you changed into these abominations. 

Of fucking course.

You don't like the idea of leaving him on the floor at all, with the way he's thrashing he might knock out his own teeth on the wall or something.

Absolutely backed into a corner and not worrying as much about your image as usual, seeing as how you had a dying flatmate on your floor, you gathered the skinny fuck into your arms with some difficulties, gaining a smack to the nose and what you were one hundred percent certain was crescent moon shaped nail marks on your arm that would scar you forever.  
A vicious battle scar. Nice.

Once you've got him settled and are on your way into a room, your room, which has a soft double-sized bed that will hopefully suit Captor's writhing needs, he goes oddly still, even going as far as curling up to make it easier for you to hold him.  
Weird, but you won't complain.

You gently dump him on his ass on the bed, immediately diving into the chaos that is your floor to find your pants.  
Thankfully they're pretty much on top of the pile of shit, so you get to your cellphone quickly, hitting speed dial #3 and waiting for Rose to pick up.

The sweet melody that plays while you wait is _so_ not helping your mood.

She doesn't pick up after four rings -of course she picks today to not pick up of fucking course what else did you even expect- so you curse and press your finger on the red line, lamenting that you can't dramatically slam the phone down to relieve some of the tension coiling up in your being like a spring.

Behind you, you hear Sollux breathing harshly, each exhale punctured with a panic-sounding whimper. Call it your Strider mother-hen genes, but it does serious things to your insides and you hit speed dial #4 at light speed and phone your best bro.

After a couple of rings you hear the crackle of a phone being tumbled around, and a muffled something before you hear the voice you've been waiting for.

"Oh hey Dav-"

"Egbert you listen to me right now, I need you to get your little ass of a housemate. Get him on the phone right now, tell him there might actually be an honest to god life on the line and to save his fucking shittalk."

Oops, kind of rude there. Who the fuck cares.

"Uh, Dave, what's-"

"What did I JUST say, John."

You hear some noises, a rustle of fabric, John yelling 'Karkaaaaat' in a concerned and questioning voice, some more yelling you couldn't decipher and finally an explosion of voice as your best friend's totally no homo spouse assaulted the speaker.

"What? What the fuck do you want that has geek here fidgeting like a goddamn schoolgirl wa-"

"Karkat we can swap metaphors later but right now I think your best friend is dying."

You move over to the bedside while you speak, stroking Sollux's now gross and moist bangs away and feeling his forehead.  
It's not hot, but it's sweaty, and his eyes are half open and rolling around in his head like he's having a vision or something.  
He's not so much shaking as he is jerking now.

"What? Strider what the fuck are you talking about, you better spit out the exact situation right now or so help me I'll come over and rip the words out from your throat pipes and squeeze it out."

"Yeah, nice, listen Sollux just fucking up and collapsed and I think he might be dying. What do I do."

"Tell me exactly what happened. Has he been eating? Oh I swear to fuck if this is another one of his goddamn boosts of inbred self-hatred and carelessness I might actually have to come over and give you both a fucking whooping until you're the one seeing colours and he's the one spouting shit. More than usual, I mean."

While he rambles, you collect yourself and try to remember everything that's happened.

"Look, I'd know if it was just him being stupidly unhealthy and I wouldn't call you of all people if that was the case. There was literally no trigger, he had a headache and then he had some milk or something, I don't know I didn't check but I don't think it was anything poisonous because let's face it he's not that completely idiotic.  
He just, fucking, fell to the floor and started shaking and sweating and shit, and he won't stay still and I'm fairly sure he's a second away from choking on his own inability to breathe, what do I do and how do I _fix_ this?"

Karkat half-mumbles something akin to 'what' before his voice drops low, doing that rough primal thing that's honestly kind of hot but at the moment you pay no attention to it because this means Karkat is being as dead serious as can be.

"Strider, I swear to fucking god, I will tear you limb from limb if he dies. I don't know what you did but you'd better fix-"

Suddenly, more clattering and muffled voices and the sound you hear when someone knocks something against the phone, and John's voice is in your ear again. You're about to tell him to beat it, but he gets you first.

"Dave, did Sollux do anything that aliens shouldn't do? Like use a new shampoo or stare at the microwave too long or something? Anything new!"

You think, tense and more than a little pissed off because you already answered this, he had a headache and drank the whatever and-

"The painkillers," you half-whisper as you remember how weird it was that trolls didn't have painkillers in their weird backwards culture.

"Dave, you can't give trolls stuff like that, not before making sure it doesn't have some weird earthly chemicals that'll mess them up!"

You're past being angry with your bro so you just stand, dejectedly, in the knowledge that this is your fault and Karkat is, indeed, going to tear you limb from limb.

But John, bless his boy soul, knows you better than you remember.

"I did it once to Karkat, too, I think it happens to everyone every once in a while, one time I ate some of Karkat's grub stuff too and I was sick for four days. Karkat also can't handle cleaning detergents very well, heh.  
But anyway, point is all you can do is wait. It's already in his system now so you can't make him throw up, just make sure he doesn't roll out a window and wait for it to pass. Rose told me trolls were really sturdy so unless you spray them with acid or something, they're not very likely to die, and you panicking won't help either."

Karkat is yelling something in the background and John holds is hand over the phone while yelling back, and meanwhile you risk a glance at Sollux.

He's not jerking like the bed's a rodeo bull anymore, but his breathing is still way off and he looks drenched. Still, he does look better (or that may just be your imagination and John's being too influential on you).

Before you can gather your wits enough to process it, John's belted out a hurried "I'll try to keep Karkat under wraps for now call us as soon as something changes bye!" and all you hear is the silence of an ended call.

John's a great guy but telling you you can't do anything about your flatmate's painful-looking seizures is not really doing anything for the situation.

 

There's not much else you can do, though.

 

For about forty minutes, you sit anxiously at the bedside like some dying dude's spouse, only Sollux is definitely not dying at all.

After a lot of double-checking to see if he's breathing, checking his pulse, tapping a beat on your thigh until it gets painful and glancing every other second at the bundle in your bed, Sollux seems to have calmed down, isn't having spasms anymore and looks that much further from death's door.

Once he starts breathing less like he's hyperventilating and more like he dozed off, you let yourself fall to the bed next to him, and in your stupidity and relief and adrenaline aftershocks, you fall asleep.

 

When you wake up the next morning, you still feel exhausted and briefly wonder why before you remember all of yesterday's shenanigans. Which did not happen yesterday, you realize when your mind's a bit more awake, but rather five hours ago, meaning you missed dinnertime.

You roll over and find the bed next to you empty, and take a moment to panic -where did he go is he dead do trolls evaporate when they die wait that's stupid but still fuckers have crotch tentacles you never know what if he fell out a window- but ultimately get up, quickly enough that you get a headrush and see white for a moment, and make your way out of your room to see where your stupid idiot dumb troll went.

You find him coming out of the kitchen, arms loaded with everything you bought yesterday and then some, mouth stuffed with carrots of all things and still wearing nothing but that godawful T-shirt and boxers.  
His eyes still look sick, glowing dimly and flickering a little and you wonder how you can even tell, and his hair is standing up everywhere, stiff with dried sweat, and you wonder if you smell as bad as he does.

  
He looks at you, you look at him, weird Al Yankovic plays in the distance, and then he shrugs like he didn't spend all of not-yesterday in pain and makes his way to the couch.

"Got kinda hungry. We're out of milk."

You throw your hands up, you don't care about the milk but seriously, can he not brush off his weird troll sickness thing that had your skin feeling like pins and needles like nothing happened?  
God damn you both need to sit down for a while and talk biology.

But before you can get all up in his grill about it, there's a knock on the door.

Your self-preservation skills don't save you from the small, livid troll on the other end and the fist that sails straight into the port that is your face.

Sollux straight-out guffaws behind you and drops some food item to the floor, and yeah, you probably deserved that.

 

 

Two days later, you and Sollux have The Magic Of Troll&Human Biology 101 with Rose and Kanaya.  
Both of you leave that much less innocent.


End file.
